But the fresh air restored her courage, and by the time she sat in Mrs. Rann’s drawing-room, face to face with her hostess, she was at ease with herself and her surroundings.  She gave out at once the peculiar social atmosphere of her race; she uttered her gay little nothings with an intimate air; she laughed good-humouredly at Mrs. Rann’s gossip, and she begged to see photographs of Mrs. Rann’s babies.  It was as if she had immediately become the confidential adviser of Mrs. Rann’s domestic difficulties.

Mrs. Rann, herself, was little and plain and obsolete.  She appeared to have been left behind in the sixties, like words that have become vulgar from disuse.  She wore bracelets on her wrists, and her accent was as flat as her ideas.  Before the war—­and even long after—­nobody had heard of the Ranns; they had arrived as suddenly as the electric lights or the trolley cars.  When Miss Chris had alluded to them as “new people,” and Juliet Galt had declared that she “did not call there,” Dudley had thrown out an uncertain line to Eugenia.  “Rann is a useful man, my dear,” he had said.  “He may be of great help to me,” and the next day Eugenia had left her card.  Where Dudley’s ambitions led she cheerfully followed.

“We are politicians,” was her excuse to Juliet, “and we can’t afford to be exclusive.  Of course, with Emma Carr and yourself it is different.  You may exclude half society if you please, and, in fact, you do; but Dudley and I really don’t mind.  He wants something, and I, you know, was born without the instinct of class.”

So she sat in Mrs. Rann’s drawing-room and received her confidences, while Juliet and Emma Carr were gossiping across the street.

“The greatest trouble I have with Mr. Rann when he comes to town,” said Mrs. Rann, “is that he refuses to wear woollen socks.  I don’t know whether Mr. Webb wears woollen socks or not.”

Eugenia shook her head.

“I’ve no doubt he would be a better and a wiser man if he did,” she responded.

“Then he doesn’t catch cold when he puts on thin ones with his dress suit.  Now Mr. Rann says woollen socks don’t look well in the evening—­and he takes cold every time he goes out at night.  He won’t even let me put red flannel in the soles of his shoes.”

“Then he’s not the man I thought him,” said Eugenia as she rose.  “Do you know, the baby is so pretty I stopped her carriage.  If she were mine I shouldn’t let her grow up.”

Mrs. Rann glowed with pride, and in the depths of her shallow eyes Eugenia read a triumphant compassion.  This little vulgar countrywoman, upon whom she looked so grandly down, was pitying her in her narrow heart.

She flushed and turned away.

“You have never had a child?” asked the little common voice.

Eugenia faced her coldly.  “I lost one—­a week old,” she replied, and she hated herself that she was proud of her seven days’ motherhood.  She had mourned the loss, but she had never vaunted the possession until now.